Monthly Archives: March 2016

In the past 5 – 10 years of TOPL the season has largely be ruled with an iron fist by either JRF or AB being the only names on the Season Champ Trophy.

The TOPL Leadership recognizes that creates apathy toward regular season nights with a large majority of our players never really in the hunt for an opportunity to win a Season Champ award.

With the transition to the FSPA/PAPA League management software this opens up a whole new world of possibilities one being the creation of a new handicapping system that, with the help of Joe Schrober, we have been able to implement!

The new system will work as follows:

After players have participated in 14 total weeks they will be assigned what we are calling a lifetime %. The lifetime % is a calculation based on every single league night a player has ever attended that is currently entered into our system. The reason we are using a lifetime percentage rather than the current season percentage is that the season percentage can vary wildly season to season and there can be quite the swing as a percentage settles down during the season. The lifetime % will be more steady so players can count on or expect the points they are going to receive each night.

Based on a players lifetime percentage players will now receive bonus points on a every league night based on that percentage, the break down being:

20% – 30% – 6 points

30% – 40% – 5 points

40% – 45% – 4 points

45% – 50% – 3 points

50% – 55% – 2 points

55% – 60% – 1 point

This means that potentially a player who’s current lifetime percentage is in the 20% – 30% range, in the event they were able to achieve a 16 on the night would then actually earn 22 points on that given league night.

The lifetime percentage will decay in order to represent a players current skill level. After a player has 90 weeks (6 seasons) of attended league nights in the system, the oldest results will drop off and we will calculate the lifetime percentage based on the most current 90 league nights in the system. We feel this will give us a good sampling with which to base the lifetime percentage on while at the same time accurately reflecting a players improvement or decline as time goes on.

The award for this new system will be exactly the same as it is for the current season. The players name on a trophy and a “Replay” into the next season. With that in mind the TOPL Leadership has also decided to retire the Pinball Wizard (High Score award trophy) and repurpose it for this new System. We feel that the high score award while fun to track is not relevant from an award perspective, chances are if you winning the season you most likely are going to win high scores as well so it just represents the rich getting richer so to speak. All the current plaques will be removed from the trophy and we will award our first Pinball Wizard plaque under this new system in the upcoming season!

With the retirement of the high score award we are also hoping this will help speed up league play since player 4 when in the lead on a machine at the end of ball 3 does not have to play if they don’t want to in order to attempt to achieve a high score on the night.

Finally this does not replace the regular Season Champ award, that will remain in place exactly the same and our submission for WPPR points during the season will be based off those standings.

We hope this shows our continued commitment to our entire membership to hopefully make the regular season more relevant to more players.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask us in person or in response to this message.

Thanks to Kim for hosting this week! Scores are up on the PAPA site, and it’s still not quite a walk off for the season champ total, but it’s also going to be a challenge for anyone to catch Adam at this point. Ian and Barry are continuing to lead the most improved category.

Just a reminder that we’re taking next week off for Easter Monday, but that is is going to be the last year we take a break for Easter Monday and PAPA (details are here). We kept those skip weeks in this season, as well as the 15 weeks of play, because people may have already made plans that depend on these skip weeks, and also because it made the season finish up at the end of April. This way, we should still be able to get three seasons in a year (14 weeks starting this summer), and they should each fit into a 4 month chunk of calendar.

Thanks to Adam for hosting this week, and for getting the scores up and doing the groups after I couldn’t make it last night. Results are here, and with 3 weeks left, it’s going to be hard to catch Adam for the season points total. On the most improved front, Ian is holding on to the lead, but Barry, Josh, and Julian are all close behind.

Thanks to Nick for hosting again this week! Scores are up in the usual place, and while Adam has pulled a little further ahead in the total standings, we now have 4 players in double digits for most improved, so that is likely to come right down to the wire. Next Monday we’re at Adam’s place-have a great week, and see everyone there!

Scores for this week are up on the PAPA site, and as we head into the last 5 weeks of the season, Ian has pulled into the lead for most improved, with Barry and Josh both in double digits. The overall standings haven’t moved much, but it’s still looking competitive for the season standings, and Barry and Jack are catching up to Adam for high scores. We’re at Nick’s next Monday, so have a great week, and if you’re still looking for more pinball, don’t forget about Walt’s Pinball for Change event this weekend. Even if you can’t make it, he’s got some great raffle prizes available, with the money going to a great cause, so check out the website, and play some pinball for a good cause.